There is an ever present need to reduce costs and to facilitate the life of workshop (vehicle repair shop) operators, i.e. mechanics. The immense amount of manufacturers in the automotive industry, particularly within the car industry, often leads to an even larger number of repair equipment within the workshops, many times due to the fact that a specific component will have different dimensions depending on which manufacturer it originates from.
Consequently, workshops are oftentimes forced to have a large amount of tools which essentially serve the same purpose which can be both costly and inconvenient. An example of an above mentioned component which many times differs between each respective manufacturer, is a wheel bearing assembly having an inner bearing ring integrated with the hub (also known as a wheel hub assembly, a hub bearing assembly or a compact bearing), which, when it is to be mounted inside a bearing seat many times require a whole arsenal of tools due to the variety of dimensions of the bearings. For example, a known manufacturer of such bearings, SKF AB, currently has 8 different models with 8 different dimensions for their HBU 2.1 bearings.
An often problematic fact about wheel bearing assemblies is that the pressing force must effectively be applied to the outer bearing ring (sometimes called outer ring). This may seem as a cumbersome approach as opposed to merely pressing on the inner ring flange. However, these wheel bearing assemblies are not constructed to handle such an axial load on the inner ring or inner ring flange and therefore, in order to prevent the wheel bearing assembly from breaking, pressure must be applied on the outer bearing ring. This is commonly known in the art, and the recommended course of action from bearing manufacturers, and a strong contributor as to why universal tools for mounting wheel bearing assemblies are rare.
As indicated above it is commonly known to provide a mounting tool for wheel bearings which are specific to every specific model or type of bearing, i.e. specific to a diameter of the bearing. Examples of such tools can be found e.g. in EP1790437 or DE102012006700. As mentioned, this type of solution leads to workshop owners having to purchase one tool for each model (each dimension) of wheel bearing.
Workshop owners and operators often desire universal tools, i.e. tools that can be adjusted to compensate for variations in dimensions, such tools are also known for mounting compact wheel bearings and an example is disclosed in DE102008007805. However, this solution is limited in many ways, and does not completely solve the problem of providing simple universal tool for mounting compact wheel bearings. For example, some car manufacturers have unfortunately placed bolts on their wheel hubs which are not compatible with the mounting tool as presented in DE102008007805. Furthermore, in use, that specific tool can be rather heavy to operate and there is still a lot of room for improvements regarding operational simplicity and cost efficiency.
There is therefore a need for an improved device for mounting wheel bearing assemblies on vehicles, and in particular automobiles, which is cost efficient, easy to operate and universal. Even though the above discussion is focused on cars (or automobiles), similar situations and problems are encountered in many other types of vehicles, such as e.g. busses and trucks.